Telangana ‘unaware’ of Waterdrome
Hyderabad: State officials are flummoxed by a recent announcement by the Ministry of Civil Aviation that the construction of a waterdrome at Nagarjunasagar Dam will be completed by 2023. “We are clueless about any waterdrome project,” an Irrigation Department official told Telangana Today. Taking everyone by surprise, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, replying to […]
Hyderabad: State officials are flummoxed by a recent announcement by the Ministry of Civil Aviation that the construction of a waterdrome at Nagarjunasagar Dam will be completed by 2023. “We are clueless about any waterdrome project,” an Irrigation Department official told Telangana Today.
Taking everyone by surprise, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, replying to a question on airports under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) in Lok Sabha on February 4, said the Ministry was constructing 10 waterdromes, three each at Andaman and Nicobar, two each in Assam and Lakshadweep and one each at Nagarjunasagar in Telangana, Prakasam Barrage in Andhra Pradesh and Shatrunjay dam in Gujarat.
In the statement, the Minister also mentioned the sanctioned cost and timeline for the project. With respect to the project at Nagarjunasagar, it said the waterdrome, where seaplanes and amphibious aircraft can land and take off, would be completed by 2023.
Meanwhile, State Irrigation Department officials, when contacted by Telangana Today, said they were unaware of any such project coming up near the vicinity of the dam, the largest masonry dam that was commissioned in 1967.
“For the construction of a waterdrome, water and a proper bund are basic requirements. No one from the Ministry, however, consulted Irrigation Department officials here for the waterdrome at Nagarjunasagar. We have so far not received any information about the project from the Ministry,” an official said.
Sources said the Ministry had even identified the project sites for construction of the 10 waterdromes under UDAN, a regional airport development scheme of the Central government, after completing a detailed study on the feasibility of such projects at these sites.
When contacted, Irrigation Department Engineer-in-Chief (General) Ch Muralidhar also said they had no information about the waterdrome project on Nagarjunasagar.
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